Best Tools for GPS Navigation
When this was written, the interesting question was whether a phone could replace a dedicated GPS. It did, comprehensively, and the useful version of the question now is narrower: when is a dedicated device still worth carrying?
For almost all travel, the phone wins. Better screen, better maps, live traffic, and it is already in your pocket. Download the maps before you go and it works with no signal, which is the only thing people get wrong.
What to use on it: Gaia GPS for backcountry layers and route recording, Organic Maps for offline travel navigation with no account and no tracking, AllTrails for finding a walk and reading recent conditions.
A dedicated handheld still earns its place in three cases:
- Multi-day trips with no power. A handheld runs for days on AA cells you can buy anywhere; a phone navigating continuously lasts an afternoon.
- Weather and abuse. Buttons work with gloves and wet hands, and the thing survives being dropped on rock.
- Satellite messaging, which is the genuinely important one. A device that can send an SOS and a text with no cell coverage changes outcomes in an emergency. Garmin's inReach range is the common answer, and recent phones have added emergency satellite features that cover part of the same ground.
What nobody needed to say in 2010: a phone is a single point of failure. If the route matters, carry a paper map and a compass as well, and know how to use them. They weigh nothing and fail in no interesting way.
Part of the guide to gadgets and power.